When I buy a new computer I aim about a tier below what is the hottest newest computer speed-wise. They're a lot more affordable. I bought this HP a year ago, with about 200 gig hard drive, and a 3 gig processor. It's still in the realm of reasonable now, but I don't know about the dual core--I'd have to research that.

Did I mention getting a copy of Ghost before? It is a good idea, and having an external hard drive that is only hooked up for a full backup every so often. This is a huge help if you have to restore the hard drive (or put the data on a new hard drive if the old one died).

SRS